


Mud

by GriegPlants



Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: Conversations, Friendship, Gen, Loss, Yuletide 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 11:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8888893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GriegPlants/pseuds/GriegPlants
Summary: Rainy days are hard enough without short-tempered drow making everything worse.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Blueinkedfrost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueinkedfrost/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide!

The rain had finally let up by the time the party stopped to make camp for the night. Mud coated Aerie's boots and oozed over the edges of her bedroll as she laid it out in the unsteady firelight. Despite the ranger Valygar's extensive wilderness knowledge, even he seemed to be having some trouble creating a strong blaze. The avariel shivered, weariness from a day of travel and fighting combining with the cold and damp and chilling her down to her bones.

The party's leader, Lane Brambletoes, had already finished setting up a bedroll and was now engaged in conversation with Yoshimo, who from what Aerie could tell seemed to be the party's thief. The knowledge that she was travelling with a criminal didn't sit especially well with the avariel, but despite its dubious members, Lane's party seemed to do a lot of good, or at least it had done so in the short time since Aerie had joined. Anyway its end goal, the rescue of Lane's sister Imoen, was admirable. Yoshimo seemed nice enough, and given the nature of some of the other party members, a thief wasn't all that bad.

Trying to hoist her pack up over a tree limb, Aerie slipped in the mud and fell down. Coming at the end of an already trying day, what with the weather and the multiple battles the party had engaged in earlier, this was a bit too much. By the time she'd dragged herself out of the soaking, churned-up forest floor, Aerie found herself unable to prevent a few tears from sliding down her face.

She hated the mud. Before being captured and imprisoned in the circus, she'd always been able to soar above it, but since that time she'd had occasion to trudge through it more times than she could count. She remembered and mourned her lost wings every single time.

Wiping the sludge off her robes, she mumbled a short prayer to Aedrie Faenya, thanking the Winged Mother for the rain in an attempt to give herself a brighter perspective on the situation. In addition to creating mud, rain allowed crops to grow, and beautiful rivers to run wide and deep, she reminded herself. It didn't really help.

She touched the stumps of her wings through her sodden robes, knowing even as she did so that feeling the rough scars would only make her feel worse. More tears ran down her face as she yanked her hand from her back - the robes had clung more tightly than she'd expected to the scars, and she could feel every knot and ridge surrounding the site of her severed limbs.

'Baervan, if - if only this road could lead me back to the sky, it would be worth all the mud in the world,' she sobbed, hiding her face in her hands.

'In Shar's name, if you do not stop babbling about the accursed sky, I will silence you myself!'

Aerie jumped, then dropped her hands to see Viconia standing worryingly close to her. The drow's expression was dark. Clearly she meant her threat; Aerie, however, did not want to let her volatile companion's hostility stop her from expressing her pain. It was bad enough that she was missing her wings, unable to fly above the freezing muck that currently marked her robes; she couldn't take the drow's cruelty on top of that, not this particular evening. Besides, she was not babbling; she hadn't mentioned missing the sky for a number of days previous.

'Y-you don't understand!' the avariel said, her usually pale cheeks blushing faintly with passion. 'It isn't just the sky itself, it is everything about flight. The world looks different from up above. Seeing things only from the ground, I've lost part of who I am, part of - of what it is to be one of the avariel, and I can n-never get that back, I can never go home!'

'Loss is part of life, insipid wael. Your talk of the sky makes me ill. The endlessness that waits above us is no home; it is a perversion, an empty void waiting to pull us from the ground.'

'It's not anything like that! How can you say something like that when you've never flown through th-'

'Ugh!' Viconia cast her arms up and stormed away. Aerie, furious, went to follow her, but was held back by a hand on her shoulder. Yoshimo had evidently come up unnoticed while the two elves were arguing.

'Do not let her bitterness bother you, my friend,' the rogue advised.

'B-bitterness? She - she says such horrible things, things that only make it all worse! I know the drow are evil, but there's no reason for her to hurt me! I have never been cruel to her.' Aerie wiped a hand angrily across her eyes.

'Not deliberately,' Yoshimo agreed, 'but I do not think she cares about intent.'

'What do you mean?'

The rogue was silent for a moment, apparently considering his words carefully. When at last he spoke, his voice was gentle.

'Aerie, my friend, you are not the only one here who has lost something precious. I do not mean to compare the two, as they are not alike in gravity, but I cannot return to my home either.'

In a second, Aerie's anger diminished and was replaced by sympathy, and chagrin at the realisation that her distress had clouded her ability to act kindly towards her friend. 'Oh, I'm so - so sorry, Yoshimo. What happened?'

He gave a self-deprecating grin. 'I am too embarrassed to go into detail, but one of my jobs did not end as well as it should. I was caught stealing something of great value from a family in possession of great power. I escaped punishment, but after that incident few wished to be seen associating with me. So, I left Okahira, and then Kozakura, and then Kara-tur, and that is how I came to Amn. If I am ever to return, it will have to be with a great deal of money and honour, or else I will be in for a very bad time.'

'I didn't know that,' Aerie said. She felt a tinge of affront at the idea that Yoshimo might equate his experience to hers, but quashed it because it was unfair - he'd already said that he knew his loss was less than her own. Besides, the admittedly lesser severity of his loss did not negate its impact. 'It is good that you decided to travel with this party, isn't it? You can find what you need to return home with us, I'm sure you can.'

The rogue shrugged. 'Perhaps. Until then, I take comfort in the company of friends. As should you! I was not speaking of only myself, earlier.'

'Who were you speaking of?'

'Everyone,' he replied. 'You have not been with this party long. Neither have I, honestly, but I have a keen eye and sharp hearing. Our honourable leader is from Candlekeep; did you know that?'

'No,' the avariel replied, surprised. She glanced over at the halfling berserker in question. Lane was digging around in the supply packs and avidly devouring a slice of buttered blackbread, humming all the while and generally giving no impression of scholarliness.

'I assure you, it is the truth,' Yoshimo said, catching her uncertain glance. 'As I understand it, there was some kind of attack - Lane's father was killed. Candlekeep may not be impossibly far from here, but it holds enough bad memories to be closed to us anyway.'

'That's terrible,' Aerie said. She was discomfited to discover that hearing about the ill fortune of her companions was making her feel a little better about her own troubles. She thought perhaps she should stop Yoshimo, but reasoned that if she was to continue travelling with her current companions she ought to learn more about them in any case.

Yoshimo seemed to have noticed her straightened posture and lighter expression. He continued: 'Valygar is being hunted by the Cowled Wizards even now. He does not dare to visit his house in the city, although I expect he is better off than some of us; I think his home is the forest as much as anywhere else.

'Our unfriendly conjurer has kept his situation to himself, but I do not think he is wanted in Thay. He is always telling us how much better it is in that country, so if he could return I expect he would already have done it.

'Viconia...' here he paused and turned to watch the drow, who had sat down on a log some ways from the fire and begun to clean mud from her boots with sharp, angry swipes of a cloth. 'Where she comes from is almost another world. She has told me something of why she fled, but I suspect much of her tale was a lie.'

'She's drow; of course she was lying,' Aerie said bitterly.

Yoshimo shrugged. 'I doubt her race had anything to do with that. Perhaps she just found me untrustworthy - though I do not see why anyone would think so badly of me!' He flashed a smile. 'My point is that she does not wish to live on the ground any more than you do, although she would rather be under it than above.'

About to give a heated reply, Aerie stopped herself as Yoshimo's words filtered through her unhappiness. 'You are saying - '

'She does not want to hear you talk about the sky because seeing it reminds her of what she has lost,' the rogue stated.

'Oh,' Aerie whispered. 'Oh, I didn't mean - '

'I know,' Yoshimo assured her. 'But as I said, I suspect what you meant has little relevance to our companion's opinion.'

'What should I do?'

Yoshimo laughed. 'Nothing, unless there is something you want to try. It is not your duty to make everyone happy, my friend. If you wish to talk about your home, do it. If things grow violent, then the rest of us will take action.'

'But that isn't what I want!' she exclaimed. 'Viconia shouldn't have said those things to me, but I didn't want to hurt her either.'

'Then do not talk about your home when she is around,' he suggested easily. 'It is all your choice. Now, shall we join the others by the fire? Whatever Lane is cooking, it smells delicious.'

'Maybe in a - in a moment,' Aerie said. Yoshimo smiled, clapped her on the shoulder, and departed for the fire. The avariel stayed where she was, thinking. She knew Viconia's words had been harsher than justifiable, even given her own unintentional cruelty, but that didn't diminish her desire to try to repair the situation, regardless of who was responsible for it. 

The avariel cautiously walked over to Viconia's log seat. Judging from her suddenly stiffer posture, the drow was aware of Aerie's approach, but did not look up or acknowledge her. Aerie took a seat a pace or so away. She watched her companion for a few minutes before hesitantly offering to take care of cleaning the cleric's helm, which was splattered with blood and muck from an engagement earlier in the day.

At this, Viconia did look up. Her expression held a curious mixture of surprise, suspicion, and something else Aerie couldn't quite identify.

'Why do you wish to help, dobluth darthiir?' she asked. 'Is this some childish attempt to win my tolerance, so you can continue crying about your lost wings in safety?'

'N-no,' Aerie answered, drawing back a little at the aggression in Viconia's tone. 'I just wanted to apologise... I didn't mean to hurt you with what I said earlier.'

Viconia's expression was decidedly surprised now, though she quickly hid it under a look of satisfied superiority. 'You could not hurt me with such powerless words, colnbluth. You only offended me. But you are wise to offer an apology. Yes, you may clean my helmet. This surface mud is very stubborn.'

Taking the imperiously offered helm, Aerie smiled timidly at her companion. Her friendly overture was not reciprocated, but as she hadn't expected it to be, she simply polished the helm in silence for a short while before hazarding a question.

'What was it like in the - the Underdark? Were there a lot of plants and animals that don't live above the ground?'

'Of course,' Viconia snapped, suspicion immediately returning to her face and voice. 'Why ask me such questions?'

'I just wanted to know about where you come from,' Aerie replied. 'You're right - I talk about my home a lot, but it's only because I miss it so much. But I spend so much time thinking about Faenya-Dail that I haven't learned anything about where my friends come from.'

'I am not your friend, silly magpie.'

'Well, I haven't learned anything about my - my companions' homes, then.'

Viconia gazed at her for a while, seeming to evaluate her words. Eventually, in a considerably softer voice than before, she spoke. 'I was born in Menzoberranzan. It is a great city, with many thousands of drow and slaves living within it.'

Aerie almost interjected then, to express the sudden wave of almost instinctive disgust she felt at the drow's mention of slaves, but she stopped herself before uttering a word. She tamped down the feeling, unsure how much of it was due to the thought of slavery and how much to the reminder that Viconia was a drow, but absolutely certain that speaking now would crush any chance that Viconia would discuss her home again.

'House DeVir stood in the centre of a grove of huge mushrooms, atop the plateau Qu'ellarz'orl,' the Sharite continued. 'The drow of the House lived in beautiful rooms within hollow pillars of stone, each one carved with the sign of Lolth, the spider...'

As she spoke on, the words seemed to come easier. Aerie listened, and while a great deal of what Viconia described sounded repulsive to her, the longing in the drow's voice mirrored the ache she felt at remembering the marble halls of Faenya-Dail.

Her wings could never be healed, she knew. She would never be able to soar over the mountains of her home, or fly together with her family. None of her friends had ever seen her home, and they would not be able to picture it as it really was no matter how much she told them about it, but then the same was equally true in reverse.

Perfect understanding was not necessary, she supposed, for sympathy. She would always miss Faenya-Dail, but walking in the mud was easier to bear in the knowledge that she was not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written Aerie before, so I think some of her dialogue sounds a tad off. I might edit it later.
> 
> I thought about including party members from the first game, since as far as 'characters who can't return home' go, Yeslick really takes the cake. But then the party would have had three clerics, and that would have been a bit much.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this story, and have a wonderful holiday!


End file.
